The True Saint

Old Demons

        Although I will never agree with what he did, I understand now what lead him to create such a destructive thing. It is the anger towards an unforgiving world, anger that he is not ready to let go of quite yet, that made the Unsea. I can undo the Fold, but not his rage. Not the things that were done unfairly to him and the other Grisha. I cannot bring Luda back, but maybe, just maybe, I can prove that he is not alone in this fight anymore.

        I gasp as I feel my mind slam back into my body. I look up at the Darkling with a hand still clasped around his arm. The way he looks at me is odd. He seems out of breath before I realize that his heavy breathing matches my own. There is something in his eyes that has changed in a matter of seconds. I could have almost mistaken it for regret, but that is not true. The Darkling does not feel regret.

Aleksander's POV:

Clever Alina. But this is my power. My shadows that she is using to tear me away. I will not give in. I will not let go. I have waited for this power, earned it with loss and with struggle. I will have it.

        I can finally feel the power that I have been devoid of for centuries. Now, thanks to Alina, I have all three of Morozova's amplifiers, as I should. It is my name, my bloodline that created them in the first place.

       As I stare at Alina's stunning gold complexion and stark white hair, she starts to fade from my vision. I fight to keep her in focus, but my mind begins to wander to an unknown place.

        Eventually, she is completely gone. My surroundings are unfamiliar at first, but the clearer the image gets, the more I recognize where I am. I am at the little Keramzin orphanage. Only this one isn't destroyed. This is a memory. Alina's memory.

        There she is. Everything seems to slow as a young Alina walks into the entry hall of the orphanage. She can be no more than nine or ten. She looks unnaturally sickly for how young she is. Holding back her power must have affected her from the time she was little.

        The perfect image of her is interrupted by the thing standing next to her. The tracker. He looks at her with those pathetic, pining eyes of his. How pitiful of him to look at her as if he stands a chance.

        Wait. These are kids. Why am I jealous of a ten-year-old orphan boy?

        "Well, look who it is," a blonde-haired boy sneers, slinking up to the two. "The scared boy and the Shu girl."

        "Don't talk to her like that!" Mal yells but immediately looks down at the ground.

        "Oh, I'm sorry. Half Shu. They must have put you here because neither Ravka or Shu Han wanted you."

        "Shut up!" little Alina retorts.

        "What are you going to do?" he asks with a grin. His expression immediately turns to fear when Alina grabs a letter opener from the coffee table.

        "Leave us alone or I'll cut you," she says, waving the sharp object towards the boy.

        Alina was fierce even before she was the Sun Summoner. I guess she had to be. The world was not kind to her from the start. I am starting to see the origin of her protective nature towards the tracker. He was the only thing she had.

        The boy backs away. "You're crazy!"

        "Maybe I am. Don't test me," she says with a fire in her eyes. The boy runs out of the front, letting the door slam behind him. I want to go to Alina, but I feel myself violently yanked into another vision. This time, Alina is in a schoolroom with the housekeeper: the one that I killed along with the Grisha trainers.